Thanks to Julie for sending this:

International human rights organization Equality Now welcomes the AAP’s decision to withdraw its ill-conceived revised policy statement on female genital mutilation issued on April 26, 2010….

The new policy statement essentially promoted Type IV FGM, as categorized by the World Health Organization, and suggested that federal and state laws might be more effective if they “enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ‘ritual nick.'” In a release issued today, the AAP stated that it has “retired” its 2010 revised statement on FGM, is opposed to “all forms of female genital cutting” and “does not endorse the practice of offering a ‘clitoral nick.'”

More on this business with teen pregnancy rates going down. And the explanations from the self-satisfied “experts” that of course their kind of sex-ed in school caused teens suddenly to become more careful about not getting pregnant.

Sexual literacy (the result of sex education in schools) and access to contraceptives are cited as two key reasons Canada’s teen pregnancy rate fell dramatically between 1996 and 2006, according to a study by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty backed away from plans to introduce an expanded sex ed curriculum this fall, after a public outcry fueled by religious groups. Yet the research from the Sex Information and Education Council does seem to imply that arming young Canadians with information about sex has positive impact. Between 1996 and 2006, teen pregnancy rates in Canada dropped by 37 per cent — more steeply than in the United States, Sweden or the United Kingdom.

Bosh. This implies that 1) the only way to become “sexually literate” is by going through school-based sex ed; that 2) religious parents are against “arming” their own personal young Canadians with information about sex; and that 3) there is significantly less sex-ed in the US than there is in Canada, which I find surprising at best. I’m no expert on religion, but there is not one normal parent I know (religious or not) who’s in favour of keeping their pre-teens and teens in the dark about sex and sexuality (not that they could if they tried). It’s just that not everybody likes the way public sex-ed teachers go about teaching the kids, and I’m guessing a lot of the objections parents have to school-based sex-ed is that it doesn’t talk about morality, the importance of commitment, or anything much outside of pure sex mechanics. Being an expert at unrolling a condom but having no idea why committed, stable relationships are also the ones in which the sex is better doesn’t strike me as fitting the definition of being “armed with information about sex”.

But then, I’m not an expert.

I love those experts:

The teen pregnancy rate in Canada is declining faster than in the United States, England or Sweden, and experts say that reflects a generation of teenagers who are better informed about sex and young women who see a future that includes goals other than motherhood. Between 1996 and 2006, the most recent years for which information is available for all four countries, Canada’s teen pregnancy rate fell by 36.9 per cent, according to a study released Wednesday by the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada. That’s compared to a 25-per-cent decline in the U.S., a 4.75-per-cent dip in England and Wales, and a 19.1-per-cent increase in Sweden.

Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m glad the rates are down. I’m just wondering whether it’s possible that pregnancy rates might be down because Canadian teenagers (at least, some of them) are having less sex?

I can oppose female genital mutilation until I go blue in the face, it won’t have the same impact as when she explains it. So I’m very grateful for this piece:

I am familiar with this debate in two ways. First, I come from a culture where virtually every woman has undergone genital cutting. I was 5 years old when mine were cut and sewn. Second, while serving as a member of parliament in the Netherlands, I was assigned the portfolio for the emancipation and integration of immigrant women. One of my missions was to combat practices such as FGM.

To understand this problem, we need to begin with parental motives. The “nicking” option is regarded as a necessary cleansing ritual. The clitoris is considered to be an impure part of the girl-child and bleeding it is believed to make her pure and free of evil spirits.

But the majority of girls are subjected to FGM to ensure their virginity—hence the sewing up of the opening of the vagina—and to curb their libido to guarantee sexual fidelity after marriage—hence the effective removal of the clitoris and scraping of the labia. Think of it as a genital burqa, designed to control female sexuality.

When the motive for FGM is to ensure chastity before marriage and to curb female libido, then the nick option is not sufficient.

Moreover, the nick option does not address the main problem in Western liberal democracies where FGM is outlawed, which is that it can almost never be detected, so that few perpetrators are brought to justice. Even if we were to consider tolerating it in its most limited form, how could we tell that parents who want to ensure that their daughter will be a virgin on her wedding night will not have her (legally) nicked and then a few months later (illegally) infibulated? I applaud the compassion for children that inspires the pediatricians’ proposal, but they need to eliminate this risk for little girls.

When it comes to this subject, there is no middle ground.

[h/t]

Some people have a strange definition of “far greater“:

OTTAWA — A third of Canadians want the abortion debate reopened – but a far greater number want politicians to leave the explosive issue alone and are satisfied with the status quo, according to a poll released Friday.

Forty-six per cent of those surveyed said the federal government should “leave things as they are”, while 34 per cent said the abortion issue should be reopened and 17 per cent said they didn’t care one way or the other. Three per cent declined to answer.

Actually, what bugs me in this story is the 17 percent of people who say they don’t care. I can see wanting to keep things as they are, and I can see wanting to change the status quo. But not caring one way or the other?

Harper Conservatives told to vote against bill that would add penalties for those found coercing a woman into getting an abortion.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will vote against a private member’s bill promoted by one of his own MPs that would add new Criminal Code penalties for those who coerce women to have an abortion. A senior government official also says that while the prime minister will not “whip” or demand Conservative MPs vote as he votes, it will be “very strongly recommended” that Conservatives vote to defeat the bill.

I’m not convinced myself that this bill is, legally speaking, all that necessary. But it’s not like it would do much harm even to those who are staunchly pro-choice. After all, it’s not because you’re in favour of abortion on demand that you sympathize with boyfriends or family members who pressure a woman into having an abortion she doesn’t want. Right? No reasonable person is in favour of coercing women into abortion. So why not let MPs vote as they wish?

Well, actually, I’m not sure there is just one (libertarians come in many varieties). But this oped by my old friend Martin Masse explains it about as well as can be.

Libertarianism is not, as many conservatives tend to believe, a relativistic philosophy of “anything goes.” It is, on the contrary, a moral philosophy, based on the principle of non-aggression.

Although a person should be free to do what he or she wants with his own body and property, that has to take place in a social setting where everyone else’s individual rights are being protected, which implies a lot of restrictions on what can be done.

When it comes to abortion, first, there is the basic libertarian question of individual rights, including the right not to be “terminated.” When is the fetus an individual and when does he have these rights? The answer to this question is fundamental.

[…]

So where would a libertarian set the threshold? One definition of an individual that can potentially garner the support not only of most libertarians, but of most Canadians, is when the fetus has brain activity and can feel. That’s the same type of debates we are having at the end of life: someone who is brain dead is not considered a living individual anymore and most of us consider it morally acceptable then to end life support.

[…]

Second, there is the question of personal responsibility and the government paying for this.

Feminist propaganda tells us that it’s a hard choice for all women going through this experience, and that we should make it as easy as possible for them. But I find it hard to believe that in Quebec for example, 30% of pregnancies (down from 40% in 2002, but up from 5% in 1975) have to end up in abortions.

Why do so many women resort to this procedure, and even use it repeatedly, as if it were a benign form of birth control?  Like all other activities that are being subsidized, people tend to find that it’s acceptable to overuse it, no matter the moral aspects involved.

[…]

As a libertarian, I would certainly want to put a lot more emphasis on personal responsibility (a basic libertarian principle) in the way we deal with this issue. The end result is that we would likely have a lot fewer abortions, and a much better balance between the competing rights of the unwilling mother and those of the unborn individual who depends on her to survive.

Father De Souza hits one nicely on the head:

What drives the hostility to the government’s motherhood issue? Motherhood. The heart of the opposition to the initiative is its starting point – expectant mothers. To a certain cast of mind, considering women as mothers constitutes something of a retrograde step. Hence the objection that helping mothers to have safe deliveries is somehow illegitimate unless similar help is offered to women to avoid becoming mothers at all.

In most elite circles, the great social liberation of the past generations has been the liberation of women from the expectation, to say nothing of the reality, of motherhood. Indeed, liberation from the fear of motherhood due to easy contraception and unlimited abortion is considered perhaps the greatest item of social progress in the last half-century. Consequently, for a program to explicitly favour motherhood, even at the minimal level of ensuring safe deliveries, causes howls of outrage from those who think that African villagers should behave more like liberal society matrons – if one might use that pregnant word, figuratively speaking of course.

In many African countries, for example, for Canada to fund abortions would be breaking the local laws. To flout local laws and undermine local customs was once called paternalism. It’s an odd turn for Canada’s abortion extremists to be paternalistic, but such is the strangeness of this controversy.

I saw the headline to this story and started worrying, but it turns out they meant “right to die” in the good old-fashioned sense of being allowed to refuse treatment even when doctors think there’s still hope.

Doctors could be struck off if they fail to respect the wishes of terminally ill patients who want to die by refusing treatment, the General Medical Council is to announce.

They must allow the terminally ill to refuse food and water if the patient does not want treatment that prolongs their life and must abide by “living wills” in which patients specify in advance that they do not want to be resuscitated.

I’m sure there are still plenty of problems with patients whose will cannot be clearly expressed (for whatever reason) or with patients who seem to be pressured into death by relatives, and who knows what all. But in principle, if you’re determined not to continue treatment come what may, then your wishes ought to be respected.